The Sunnis are destroying sites that are holy to the
Shiites, and the Shiites, along with the Alawite regime in Syria, are
destroying sites in Syria that are holy to the Sunnis.

This echoes the conflict between Syria and Saudi Arabia
(the Hijaz) in the Ummayad period (661-750), during which the Syrian army
of the Ummayads assaulted with catapults the Kaaba, the holiest structure
in Islam, in the courtyard of the Great Mosque in Mecca.

On August 14, 2013, former Lebanese minister Fayez
Shaker, head of the Syrian Ba'ath Party branch in Lebanon, said in a TV
interview that if Mount Qasioun in Damascus were to be fired upon, Syria
would blow up the Kaaba.

The Shiite crescent is challenging the status of Mecca.
The Iraqi Shiites favor Karbala as the Shiite holy city instead of Mecca,
while the Assad regime touts Jerusalem. On December 23, 2013, the
Iraqi-Shiite prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, said the direction of prayer
should be Karbala and not Mecca.

Moreover, the Hizbullah Party of Iraq, the twin sister of
Hizbullah in Lebanon, has sworn to wrest the holy places in Saudi Arabia from
the Wahhabis and make them Shiite shrines, while in the Sunni camp, the Muslim
Brotherhood wants to focus on liberating the Al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem.

About Me

American born, my wife and I moved to Israel in 1970. We have lived at Shiloh together with our family since 1981. I was in the Betar youth movement in the US and UK. I have worked as a political aide to Members of Knesset and a Minister during 1981-1994, lectured at the Academy for National Studies 1977-1994, was director of Israel's Media Watch 1995-2000 and currently, I work at the Menachem Begin Heritage Center in Jerusalem. I was a guest media columnist on media affairs for The Jerusalem Post, op-ed contributor to various journals and for six years had a weekly media show on Arutz 7 radio. I serve as an unofficial spokesperson for the Jewish Communities in Judea & Samaria.